Vamping it Up

How to dress like the women of True Blood

Before True Blood, the vampiric HBO soap that makes Twilight look like Little House on the Prairie, style aficionados would have turned up their noses at a dusty little Louisiana town like Bon Temps, where the women wear short shorts and the men wear tank tops smeared in axle grease. Enter the vampires. For two summers, they've stalked their small-town prey with style—and centuries of fashion sense. Now, in the show's third season, their costume designer, Audrey Fisher, who's dressed actors on the stage and screen for 18 years, is upping the ante. While the warm-blooded Sookie and Tara, and the fledgling night crawler Jessica, are maturing their wardrobes, the cast of seasoned vampiresses—Pam, Sophie-Anne, and Lorena—are as opulent as ever. Fisher talks to ELLE.com about what the women of True Blood—alive and undead—keep in their closets and why you should cover your eyes when you see them wearing white.

Vamping it Up

Vamping it Up

ON SOOKIE'S FLOWER POWER

"Sookie is definitely growing up, but she's still that sweet country girl underneath it all, and I want to maintain the small-town-girl vibe. So florals are definitely a signature. Her roots are in calicos, ginghams, and sweet florals. But this season we keep the palette more controlled—a little softer, more pastels—like this outfit. Bill's gone, and Sookie doesn't know if he's left her or if he's been taken, and she's panicking. So she wears something less formfitting, less body-conscious, because she's not really thinking about what she's wearing. But she's still Sookie! So she picks this adorable snap-front shirt that still reflects her femininity and rides around town in her little shorts trying to find Bill."